Joel Coen
Joel Coen (November 19, 1954) is an American director, writer and producer. He is the older brother of Ethan Coen and together they are known as The Coen Brothers. Known for many distinctive stylistic trademarks including genre hybridity, the brothers' films No Country for Old Men, A Serious Man and Inside Llewyn Davis have been ranked in the BBC's 2016 poll of the greatest motion pictures since 2000. Biography Joel and Ethan Coen were born and raised in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. Their mother, Rena (née Neumann), was an art historian at St. Cloud State University, and their father, Edward Coen, was an economist at the University of Minnesota. Their family is Jewish. When they were children, Joel saved money from mowing lawns to buy a Vivitar Super 8 camera. Together, the brothers remade movies they saw on television, with their neighborhood friend Mark Zimering ("Zeimers") as the star. Their first attempt was a romp entitled Henry Kissinger, Man on the Go. Cornel Wilde's The Naked Prey (1965) became their Zeimers in Zambia, which also featured Ethan as a native with a spear. Joel Coen has said: "In regards to whether our background influences our film making ... who knows? We don't think about it ... There's no doubt that our Jewish heritage affects how we see things." Joel and Ethan graduated from St. Louis Park High School in 1973 and 1976, respectively, and from Bard College at Simon's Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Joel then spent four years in the undergraduate film program at New York University, where he made a 30-minute thesis film called Soundings. Ethan went on to Princeton University and earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy in 1979. His senior thesis was a 41-page essay, "Two Views of Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy". Joel has been married to actress Frances McDormand since 1984. They adopted a son from Paraguay named Pedro McDormand Coen. McDormand has acted in several Coen Brothers films, including a minor appearance in Miller's Crossing, a supporting role in Raising Arizona, lead roles in Blood Simple and The Man Who Wasn't There, her Academy Award-winning role in Fargo, and her starring role in Burn After Reading. She also did a voice-over in Barton Fink. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Joel and Ethan Coen announced The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in January 2017 as a collaboration with Annapurna Television. While some initial reports claimed the work to be a six-part television series, the Coens' intended the stories to be seen together, structured them that way in the script they submitted to Annapurna, and shot the script as written. The work is based on Western-themed short stories written by the Coens over a 25-year period that differ in mood and subject. "All Gold Canyon" was based on a Jack London story. Throughout 2017 and into the start of 2018, James Franco, Zoe Kazan, Tyne Daly, Willie Watson, Ralph Ineson, Tim Blake Nelson, Stephen Root, Liam Neeson and Brendan Gleeson joined the cast. The Ballad of Buster Scruggs was filmed partly in the Nebraska Panhandle, and casting calls went out for "ordinary" Nebraskans to appear as extras. Some filming also took place in New Mexico, location for the Coen films No Country for Old Men and True Grit. Filmography * Barton Fink * Fargo * Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? * The Big Lebowski * No Country For Old Men * True Grit * Hail Caesar! * The Ballad of Buster Scruggs Category:Crew